Sculptor

The Frederick Douglass Honor Society has signed an agreement with a sculptor to build a statue honoring Douglass on the Talbot County Courthouse lawn. The agreement with Silver Spring sculptor Jay Hall Carpenter stipulates that the statue of the African-American orator and activist be completed by June 2011. The organization originally sought to have the statue completed during Easton's 300th Anniversary celebrations in November, but society President Eric Lowery says this allows Carpenter time to give the society the best product he can. The Talbot County Council must still sign off on the project.

Your recent report about the "sails" sculpture I designed for Patterson High School suggests to me that the conservator hired by the school system to preserve it does not understand the intent behind the artwork ( "City evaluates art in schools as part of 10-year renovation plan," June 19). The well-known architect of the building, Van Fossen Schwab, asked me to create a sculpture that could protect a large, glass second-floor window from vandals as well as allow light to enter the interior.

Chinese sculptor Hou Rong, founding director of the Beijing Modern Sculpture Institute, came to the United States four years ago as sculptor-in-residence at Towson State University, the first such residency by a contemporary sculptor from China at a university in this country.He stayed on in the master of fine arts program at Towson, where his thesis exhibit opens today at the University Union Gallery. It will include some of the life-size replicas he has created of the famous army of terra cotta warriors unearthed at the tomb of Qin Shi Huang in China.

Three Baltimore-area artists — a musician who has pioneered the use of the bass clarinet as a solo instrument and two sculptors — have been named winners of the 2014 Baker Artist Awards. The $25,000 juried prizes were conferred Thursday night during Maryland Public Television's "Artworks" program on clarinetist and composer Todd Marcus, on MICA-trained sculptor Brent Crothers, and on machinist and sculptor Chris Bathgate. The three will be feted at a May 12 reception at the WTMD-FM studios in Towson.

A violist, a sculptor and a film animator walked away yesterday with top prizes in the 2010 Baker Awards - among the most prestigious and lucrative awards given to individual artists living and working in the Baltimore region. The three $25,000 prize winners were Peter Minkler, 49, a musician with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra who has released a CD of solo works for the viola; Richard Cleaver, 57, a sculptor who crafts intricate, bejeweled and intentionally primitive tableaux; and Karen Yasinsky, 44, a film animator who controls every aspect of her creations, down to building the ceramic "actors" used in her videos.

Sebastian Martorana is a stoop storyteller in the finest tradition of Baltimore's stoop storytellers. The sculptor, a transplant to the city who recognized immediately the cultural meaning of rowhouse marble steps, tells the story of trying to rescue many of those steps from demolition. "These steps are a savable part of Baltimore history," said Martorana, whose work has been chosen for display in the prestigious "40 under 40: Craft Futures" at the Renwick Gallery at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington that opened Friday.

Your recent report about the "sails" sculpture I designed for Patterson High School suggests to me that the conservator hired by the school system to preserve it does not understand the intent behind the artwork ( "City evaluates art in schools as part of 10-year renovation plan," June 19). The well-known architect of the building, Van Fossen Schwab, asked me to create a sculpture that could protect a large, glass second-floor window from vandals as well as allow light to enter the interior.

John Raimondi When: Tuesdays through Saturdays 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., through Dec. 29.Where: The C. Grimaldis Gallery Sculpture Space, 1006 Morton St.Call: 539-1092.The John Raimondi sculptures at Grimaldis are smaller versions of pieces commissioned for various public and private spaces, and they display the abilities that such work requires. They also reveal the essential weakness into which such work can fall Take "Athleta" (1990) for instance, a pedestal piece based on a commission for the University of Nebraska's sports colosseum.

By Robert Benjamin and Robert Benjamin,Beijing Bureau Correspondent | July 4, 1994

Beijing -- When Jim Paulsen set out to create an outdoor sculpture for China's capital, his first design reflected his abstract vision "of the movements through space of Chinese calligraphy."More than a year later, plans for the sculpture have become something of a collaboration between Mr. Paulsen, a Towson State University sculptor, and a Chinese artist, Zhao Chengmin.And Mr. Paulsen's original notion of the piece -- claimed to be the first outdoor sculpture by an American in China -- is not so recognizable in its latest design.

Phyllis S. Buxton, a retired educator and sculptor, died of pneumonia April 3 at Bryant Woods Inn, a Columbia group home for the elderly. She was 85.The former Cross Keys and Chevy Chase resident was a special education teacher in Montgomery County schools from 1955 to 1961 and was instrumental in developing classes in Maryland for the developmentally disabled.Her interest in sculpture began during the 1930s as a student at the University of Michigan, where she studied with the noted sculptor Avard Fairbanks, who designed the Mack Truck bulldog.

Devin Mack was in a figurative drawing class at Ithaca College more than a decade ago when his professor handed him a roll of wire and said, "Here, make a figurative drawing out of this. " Mack, who was studying cinema and photography at the school, made his first sculpture and took the first step into a career. Today he continues to make wire sculpture "large and small" out of everything from coat hangers to precious metal. Indeed, probably one of his best known sculptures is a 12-foot-tall honeybee outside of Baltimore Honey, a community-supported apiary in Woodberry.

The woman behind the interiors of many of Baltimore's significant buildings celebrates this year the 15th anniversary of the founding of her business, Portnoy Levine Design Associates or PLDA. Raised in Connecticut and educated at the Pratt Institute in New York, Portnoy struck out on her own in 1998. Her business now employs nine people at its St. Paul Street offices and counts among its dozens of clients the University of Maryland, for which its work includes the School of Journalism, the new Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore and the forthcoming bioengineering building.

Ralph R. Baney, a sculptor and ceramic artist who taught at Dundalk Community College, died of an aortic aneurysm Jan. 21 at his Ellicott City home. He was 84. Born in Trinidad, he was the son of Baney Seecharan and Bhagia Seecharan. After study at the Teachers' College in Trinidad and Tobago, he won a government scholarship to Brighton College of Art in England. "He worked in the style of the British sculptors Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth," said Paul W. Glasgow, interim chair of the art and design department at what is now the Community College of Baltimore County.

Sean O'Harra's furniture might be newly constructed, but there's nothing "new" about it. Walking through his workshop, a cavernous warehouse space on Reisterstown Road, O'Harra points to an enormous piece of wood, a cross-section of a maple tree trunk. "That is a tabletop," he explains. "It came out of a yard in Mount Washington and migrated to me. " The wood is rich brown, with prominent grain and an intricate, almost lacy, edge. It made its way to O'Harra via friends and friends of friends who knew he would appreciate it. He'll pair the wood with a metal base, balancing the maple's organic beauty with the cool modernity of metal.

Close on the heels of the eclectic and engaging exhibit of Sondheim Artscape Prize winners at the Baltimore Museum of Art comes the eclectic and engaging exhibit of the Baker Artist Award winners. The annual Baker competition, administered by the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance under the direction of the William G. Baker Jr. Memorial Fund, has an unusual starting point: Artists from the Baltimore area working in any genre are invited to upload their work onto a website for anyone to see. A private jury looks at this online community of artists — more than 700 uploaded entries for this year's competition — and chooses three recipients of the $25,000 Mary Sawyers Baker Prize and awards up to nine $1,000 "b-grants.

Sebastian Martorana is a stoop storyteller in the finest tradition of Baltimore's stoop storytellers. The sculptor, a transplant to the city who recognized immediately the cultural meaning of rowhouse marble steps, tells the story of trying to rescue many of those steps from demolition. "These steps are a savable part of Baltimore history," said Martorana, whose work has been chosen for display in the prestigious "40 under 40: Craft Futures" at the Renwick Gallery at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington that opened Friday.

Elizabeth Blumenthal, a retired medical sculptor who for five decades created prosthetics and plastic surgical devices for patients recovering from cancer, birth defects and accidents, died of heart failure Feb. 23 at Brightwood Center, Genesis Healthcare. The former Woodbrook resident was 89. A former Johns Hopkins University assistant professor, she worked in Hopkins' department of art as applied to medicine from the early 1940s until her retirement a decade ago. Born Elizabeth Sylvania Cone in Troy, Pa., she lived in Sudbrook Park and on Wolfe Street, where her mother ran a boarding house for Hopkins medical students.

CRAZY HORSE, S.D. -- A few dozen feet overhead, a workman sits on scaffolding underneath a massive granite nose, faintly complaining that the stone below the left nostril is harder than he'd expected."

When he wanted to get the attention of his scuba class, Ed Kidera would bang on a full air tank that he used for instruction. His students would instantly redirect their eyes toward him, drawn back to reality by the beautiful tone emanating from the heavy steel cylinder. The tank's special sound wasn't lost on Kidera, either, as he immediately recognized its potential as kinetic art. That moment of serendipity more than 20 years ago changed the direction of his life. Kidera, who has a master's degree in ocean engineering and was a self-employed consultant at the time he was giving scuba lessons part time, began experimenting with making bells from various types of tanks shortly after his chance discovery.

A Washington, D.C., artist who works in multiple media was awarded the 2012 Janet and Walter Sondheim Artscape Prize - a $30,000 purse - at a ceremony Saturday evening at the Baltimore Museum of Art . Renee Stout, whose painting, drawing, prints, sculpture and photography explore her African-American heritage, beat five other finalists for the honor, according to a statement from the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts, which sponsors...